


enter stage left

by tiredsia



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Stream of Consciousness, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:21:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24523762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiredsia/pseuds/tiredsia
Summary: "And you can almost hear Maryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing  Mamma mia in your ear - you know, the bit where they go "my, my just how much I've missed you" - with all the old Greek ladies dancing the sirtaki around them. And, well, that's the moment you realize you are fucked. Truly, utterly, ridiculously fucked."or: what happens when Richie can't sleep and he is in a talky mood
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 1
Kudos: 41





	enter stage left

**Author's Note:**

> this is basically just 3k words of richie talking to himself

Okay, so. Let’s say you are a thirteen years old kid who lives in buttfuck nowhere, Maine. And like, your parents love you but they don’t care about you enough to, like, give you curfew, or ask you where you are going, with whom, when you are coming back home et cetera. And you know what? You don’t mind it. Actually, you are pretty happy about it. It means you are free to be a jackass and bullshit your way through your day without having mommy or daddy bitching about it. Basically every kid’s dream. And it’s summer, so you should be at peak fucking happiness, right?

Well, actually you are pretty fucking terrified. You are so, so sure your face is gonna end up on the milk cartons, because you’re realizing you should be thinking way more about Pamela Anderson’s boobs, and way less about Harrison Ford shirtless scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Because there is your best friend, Eddie, who everyone thinks is this sweet, fragile little thing, but actually he is just like a gremlin who has just jumped headfirst into a pool, and – and you, you just want to make him look at you, to make him laugh, to make him realize how brave he is. It seems you can't stop thinking about him, about that freckle he has above his ear, and that's, that's not fucking normal. Because you have realized you are like _that._ And Derry doesn’t really like people like that.

And the more time goes by, the more you are sure that other people can see it too, written all over your over your face, and more scared you are, and it feels like there’s a, a thing in your stomach that’s tearing you apart from the inside and- listen, I’m not good with metaphors. My friend Ben, he’s great with them, you should read one of his poems. So, anyway, you are so fucking terrified you start thinking that this whole thing is the town’s fault, you think that it is just another way for Derry to terrorise you, and that maybe, just maybe, if you get the fuck away from that hellhole, your gayness will magically disappear and you’ll be fine as a fiddle.

I have some bad news for you, buddy. 

‘Cause you’re still gay as hell, and, to top it off, you’ve become America loneliest, greatest closet case. What can I say, you are a natural. Aaaand… yup. That’s it. That’s basically your life, until your friend Mike calls you for the first time in twenty-something years, just before your Chicago gig, and says: “Hey Rich, long time no see, look the literal embodiment of evil that you swore to kill when you were thirteen has come back, so you kinda have to return to the town you had nightmare about for your whole childhood.”

So you vomit, screw up your own show, making everyone – including your manager- you had a drug related meltdown on stage, get on a plane, rent a car and go back to Derry, sweet Derry.

You get there, you realize all your friends have become fucking Calvin Klein models, discover that a Chinese restaurant has opened – which is a great improvement for Derry inclusivity-wise – bang the gong that’s inside said restaurant and then you see him. Eddie. Eds. Your childhood crush who’s not so childhoody, after all.

And you can almost hear Maryl Streep and Pierce Brosnan singing Mamma mia in your ear - you know, the bit where they go "my, my just how much I've missed you" - with all the old Greek ladies dancing the sirtaki around them. And, well, that's the moment you realize you are fucked. Truly, utterly, ridiculously fucked.

Because not only he looks like some sort of Anthony Perkins who has hit the gym one too many times and has, like, stolen Bambi's eyes and surgically implanted them in his skull, but he's also married. To a woman. And, frankly, you should have expected it, what did you think, that he would leap into your arms the moment he saw you, saying “I’ve realized I’ve been in love with you all my life, Rich, did you hear me, let’s get the fuck away from this shithole”? Well, maybe. Maybe you did, and that’s because you watched too many Netflix rom coms, some soap operas too, but you are not ash- well, you are a bit ashamed. But not because they’re Netflix’s! Netflix is great, it’s producing my next show, so…

Fuck, no.

Scratch that. I sound like a seventeen-year-old youtuber, Jesus Christ.

[ _…_ ]

[ _…_ ]

[ _…_ ]

Anyway. Anyway! He didn’t leap into your arms and you are still stuck in this nice Chinese restaurant, and so you do the only logical thing possible in this situation. You try to get drunk. You try to get so drunk you can forget your heart is aching like a rotting tooth and you are back to the place that can make all your nightmares come true. That you feel like your thirteen-year-old self, in all the bad ways. Hoping that, maybe, if you get smashed enough, you can turn this whole shitshow in your favor. You can talk shit, be a dick, and make them think “ah-ah, classic Richie. Let’s not worry about him”.

It doesn’t work, obviously. Shit doesn't turn in your favor. In fact, shit just get worse. And well, there is some stabbing. There is a lot of stabbing, actually. And some axe-murdering too. And, and he gets stabbed too. Eddie. Eds. He gets stabbed too, twice. Once in the cheek and an another time in the chest. Through the chest. So, technically, he got skewered.

And. Uhm. He’s dying. You know this, he knows this, everyone does. And the last fucking thing he wants to say to you before he waves goodbye to this shitshow, the words he wants to waste his last breath on are: “Richie, I fucked your mother”. And you-

You are so fucking in love with him it hurts, man. It feels like- it fucking feels like you are the one bleeding out on the fucking dirt, and you think, you think: “if life was a Disney fairytale type of shit, this’d be so much easier Jesus fuck, I’d just to kiss him and he’d be fine”. True love’s kiss and eight-year-old heart. Ha-ha. As if.

But- but life isn’t a fairytale, it isn’t even a romcom. It’s more like a Bill Denbrough’s book. The end of a Bill Denbrough’s book: pure shit.

And you just want to cry, to scream, to kiss him, to- to just lie down beside him and let that fucking goddamned crackhead house bury you both. And you would have done it if it hadn’t been for Ben. And his abs.

And I’d have gotten away with it if it weren’t for that meddling kid and his stupid abs!

And so, Ben drags Eddie’s sorry, impaled ass out of the sewers- yes, you were in the sewers, no, don’t ask, it’s a long fucking story- and boom, in no time you are at the Derry Memorial and a nurse is trying to clean a wound on your head which you don’t even know how you got, and it’s all “sir, can you please sit still for- no, I don’t know how he is, he is probably in surgery, no sir, sit down-” but you are already up and wandering around the hospital corridors, and since when this place is so fucking big, Jesus Christ.

You are pretty sure you are lost, because it’s the third time you walk past that vending machine, when you bump into Mike who says, all serious and shit, “Richie, why do you have a piece of gauze hanging on your hair?” and you just. Collapse on a chair and start crying, which is funny because you didn’t remember stopping.

And it’s not even, like, pretty crying. Dignified crying.

You are ugly sobbing, smearing snot all over your face- which, I feel the need to specify, is still covered in grime and literal shit – and you are pretty sure a nurse is looking at you like you belong in the psych ward, and if you were Mike you’d be so embarrassed you’d start shouting “I don’t know him, I’ve never seen this man before in my life! Can someone please come and collect him?” but he just hugs you instead. He even starts to rock a bit, like you are at the middle school dance and someone has put Can’t fight this feeling on the speakers, and keeps telling you that everything is ok, things will be ok now Rich, don’t worry; which only makes you cry harder.

Eventually you stop dripping mucus all over your chin and your friend’s clothes and go wash yourself in the cafeteria's bathroom, all the while you pray every deity that comes to your mind for Eddie to be ok, please God slash turtle slash whoever the fuck is listening, please, make him be ok; I swear, if he wakes up, I'll tell him everything, every fucking thing, how in love I was with him when I was twelve, how I in love I'm with him now, please, please.

And, in the end, he wakes up.

Thank God, he wakes up.

And you go into his room – where, technically, you couldn’t go, but Bill has bribed a nurse to let you enter, I know, what happened to work ethics, uh? - and he is paler than a ghost, and has, like, a hundred of I.V. needles stuck into his arm, but he has never looked more beautiful to you than right now.

And then, he opens his eyes, looks at you for five seconds and says, “Dude, you look like shit.”, which, you know, fair. You didn’t even shower, you just splashed some water on your face and under your arms, your glasses are cracked and your jeans aren’t blue anymore, and you know you don’t smell of roses or violets.

But you don’t have the time to be self-conscious because he’s waiting for you to bite back, you know he’s waiting for you to bite back, so you’re about to tell him “Well, you look like someone who got gutted by an alien spider-crab”, or maybe “I love you so much I feel like someone ripped put my heart and replaced it with molten lava, and I know this is a weak-ass metaphor, but I’m fucking traumatized here, cut me some slack”. But in that moment a doctor comes in, looks at you like you are a lump of phlegm someone has spat on his shoe and tells you that you shouldn’t be in this room, would you mind getting out of here, please? So you go out and find out that Eddie’s wife is down the hall and has been screaming at a receptionist for the last ten minutes. Because Eddie still has a wife. Getting skewered by an alien clown from outer space doesn’t automatically make you divorce from your spouse. That’d be weird.

So, long story short, Eddie is alive and his wife by his side, oh what a lovely picture, you’re basically useless and there’s nothing better for you to do but go back home.

And… well. You decide to stop being a dick. Which, uh, isn’t really easy. Especially if you are, like, a dick by proxy. You don’t do the actual dickery, you just give your face to the dickery. Which isn’t an excuse, you still said that vaguely racist slash misogynistic shit in front of hundreds of people, you aren’t exactly Saint Francis. Or whatever.

So you, uh, make an apology. With a tweet. When you are shitfaced drunk on cheap vodka. Again, not exactly Saint Francis.

You also come out. With the same tweet. And when you realize that, you kinda panic and throw your phone against the wall. And so, now you have told the world you are a raging homo _and_ you have a phone with a cracked screen. Fucking great.

Well, at least your friends send you all those sweet and supportive texts on the group chat. The pros of having some friends are, I guess, that those guys care about you! Fucking unbelievable, right?

Anyway, times passes by, you maybe perhaps consider going to therapy, change idea a dozen times, and get invited in Ben’s fucking McMansion for New Years’ Eve with all the others.

And you know what’s the first thing Eddie says when he walks through the door? “I have divorced my wife”.

And you want to ask him what happened, how, are you ok, do you want to talk about it, do you want to get drunk, we can get drunk. Instead, you say: “Holy shit, congrats dude. Are you going to do one of those divorce party where people yell insults at each other instead of, like, exchanging vows?”

To which he responds, “You are a fucking idiot.”, which, you know, fair.

You spend the evening eating, drinking and generally being merry. And then it’s two am and you are sitting with Eddie on Ben’s nice leather couch, because Beverly wanted to light some fireworks in the backyard and Eddie did not wish to start the fucking year by losing a limb because you want to see some fucking sparkles Bev, thank you so fucking much.

And you ask him how the things are going, and he says that he is ok, he’s just tired of being a pathetic fuck up. And you can’t fucking believe it, and so you say: “You are not fucking pathetic dude, what the fuck.”

And he says “When I got back home the only thing I could think about was that the last time I was truly fucking happy was when I was in Derry with you all. Even if I was scared shitless. Even if there was that fucking clown hopping around. That sounds pretty fucking pathetic to me.”

And his eyes shine so fucking bright – and that’s probably the gayest thing you’ve ever thought- and. I ran out of idiotic metaphors. You just love him. I know I’ve said this before, but… that’s it.

You say “Would you kiss me if I asked you to?”, and he looks at you and he’s putting a hand on your shoulder and probably he’s talking to you also, but you can’t hear him because you are too busy vomiting the tortellini avec jamón and the prosecco you’ve gobbled at dinner on Ben’s sofa and carpet. You don’t even realize Bill has come in – and is high as a fucking kite – until he fucking screams “Ben, I hope that rug isn’t a real Persian!”, scaring the shit out of you and making you bump the top of your head against Eddie’s chin.

Obviously, you don’t talk about it the next day. Or the day after that.

Imagine talking about feelings like adults, who does that?

Except that a week after the whole “Trashmouth trashed the couch” party, you are still in New York doing interviews to “rebrand yourself”, or whatever the fuck your manager said you had to do, you didn’t listen to him, and Eddie invites you to dinner.

You pick up the most obnoxious fucking shirt for the event – the one with the purple dolphins that Beverly threatened to burn if you ever took it out of your closet again – hoping to elicit in Eddie a fit of rage so great it makes him look a bit crazy around the eyes and maybe, perhaps, to make him forget about the topic at hand, aka: you begging him to kiss you and vomiting without having even finished the sentence.

But by the time you are sitting at the restaurant’s table, you want to set the shirt and yourself on fire; fire fueled by the strength of your own fucking embarrassment. Because Eddie couldn’t have dinner at a Five Guys like a normal fucking person, no. He had to make a reservation at the second-best Italian restaurant in Brooklyn.

And so you are sitting at this fucking table, which is set up with three different types of forks, and you know this place has at least four enthusiastic reviews made by girls named Cynthia who have been proposed to here, and maybe this is Eddie’s way to sugarcoat the inevitable rejection, but it’s not fucking working for you. That’s it, until Eddie opens his mouth and starts talking shit about a waiter’s haircut, which seems to be stuck in the 80s.

And suddenly everything becomes easy. Because this is fun, this is Eddie-and-Richie and is good, is so good, even if you are waiting for the other shoe to drop and your inner monologue is just a continuous stream of “What are you doing, I love you, can’t you see you are killing me here, I love you, I love you, I love you.”

You end up splitting the dessert and the check and taking a walk together, and at some point, Eddie stops, and you realize you are in front of his apartment building and he’s asking you if you wanna go upstairs and you say, like a fucking idiot, “No, don’t worry, I have a room at the Hilton”. And you see Eddie’s face crumple, and he looks so hurt and angry and ashamed, and that’s when you realize. And it seems impossible, and a small part of your brain keeps screaming at you that you got it all wrong even when you sprint to get to Eddie, who has turned his back to you and is struggling to open the door.

You ask, “Was this a date?” and he says “Well, apparently it fucking wasn’t for you” and he sounds so hurt and angry, not at you, but at himself you take him by the shoulders and shake him, saying: “Eddie, I wanted so hard for this to be a date! I just didn’t want to get my hopes up ‘cause I was pretty fucking sure you were gonna scream at me for being a fucking idiot!”

You’ll remember the smile he makes for the rest of your sad, awkward life.

And so, he takes you upstairs. I won’t get into the details, ‘cause I’m pretty sure nobody wants to hear that. I’ll just say that, when there’s a dull but pleasant pain settled on your kneecaps, you end up crying. Yeah, again. And you’re sure that Eddie will make fun of you or tease you at the very least. But he just holds you. And you, you feel happy and. Safe.

__________________________________

“Rich?” Eddie pads into the kitchen frowning, his hair tousled from sleep, looking like the world’s hottest, grumpiest owl. “What are you doing?”

Richie holds up his phone, where the recording app is still going, “Woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep and so I decided to work on a new bit.”

“Hm.” Eddie comes up behind him and wraps his arms around him, rubbing his nose between Richie’s shoulder blades; Richie turns slightly and kisses him on a temple.

“Didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t. Is it any good?”

“Nah. It sounds like someone who just dreamed about being vomited by a small-town tourist attraction decided to narrate his autobiography”

“Come back to bed, then, funnyman” Eddie says, his voice muffled by Richie t-shirt.

Richie turns around on the barstool he’s sitting on, and runs a hand through Eddie’s hair, messing it up more than it already is. He loves Eddie like this, soft and affectionate and still somewhat giving Richie shit. “You just want to use me like your personal heating pad.”

Eddie straightens and offers his hand out. “Yes, and?”

Richie laughs and takes it, standing up and letting himself be led.


End file.
